Whee, got some soundtracks.

[Alunissage]

My undoubtedly most expensive game-related purchase arrived today: several soundtracks of varying vintage. I got Ys Piano Collection, Riviera Arrange Soundtrack, a hideously expensive Orchestral Game Music Concert live recording (from 1993, and still new), and FFIV piano collection with score (hardcover sheetmusic for the CD). The weird thing is how little of this goes with games I've played. Riviera is still in its shrinkwrap. I've seen only the very beginning and end of FFIV, although I've heard some of the tracks from the one I just got on the Potion CD. The piano music looks to be exactly what's on the CD, mostly simple, some more complex and demanding. I've been wanting some sightreading practice that wasn't too demanding, so this should do.

Ys I know a little better, though I still have never played any of the games myself besides about two minutes of the E3 demo of Ys VI on PSP. (It had terrible load times and then crashed, so I gave up.) I've watched four Ys games but started getting soundtracks before I'd seen/heard any, I think, on the strength of hearing the Very Best of Ys soundtrack. This may well not be an uncommon occurrence, considering that Ys soundtracks probably outnumber Ys games by about 9 to 1.

The biggie, the orchestra concert CD, was bought for exactly one track, from Link's Awakening. I've wanted a soundtrack of that game (and the other GB Zeldas) for so long, and I think the only other bit of Link's Awakening music I have in my dozen or so Zelda soundtracks is about thirty seconds of Hyrule Symphony. It also has a couple of Albert Odyssey bits, which I'm looking forward to since I remember that game having pretty good music (although I can only remember one theme from it). This CD is probably the single most expensive game-related item I've bought, including consoles. I hope it's good. ^^;

Along with all of this I got an issue of Nintendo Dream because it came with a CD with a track of Twilight Princess music...as a Zelda soundtrack collector of sorts I had to get it. The relevance to this particular board, though, is that this issue was the one with six pages on Lunar DS, so I can kind of chalk it up to my Lunar collection as well. I didn't know about this until I was flipping through the magazine on my way home. It was kind of fun seeing previews to various games, since I generally don't buy game magazines unless there's a specific article I want.

On another note, anyone see that All the Lunar go for $360 on eBay a few days ago? Was that anyone here? Makes me feel a lot better about what I paid for it last year.

[GhaleonOne]

All the Lunar went for 360 smackers on Ebay? Dayam!

[Greensky]

Wow. I think I'd only want All The Lunar for the wallpaper... and we have it available for download on Lunar Net still, don't we?

[GhaleonOne]

Yeah, though I believe the site is missing 3-4 pieces of wallpaper, but not much.

[love a riddle]

I'm not familiar with all of those CDs, but the ones I've heard are good.

[Spirit Icana]

I like the Riviera arrange soundtrack, personally. I feel they carry a nice vibe to the good old Sakuraba progressive style. I wish some of the slower themes were longer and varied, but whatever was there pleased the ears. The composers for Riviera get a clap from me.

Great composition!

Oh, and Alunissage, what was that one Link's Awakening song you wanted to listen too?

[Alunissage]

Any Link's Awakening music, really....it's ridiculously underrepresented in Zelda soundtracks. Unfortunately, the track that was on the CD was one I'm really not that interested in from the game -- the ending credits, which are somewhat generic. One thing I really liked in that game was how there were several variations on the Zelda main theme, from the mountain to Animal Village, to the alternate opening, etc., and how each dungeon had its own music. Oh well. The rest of the CD was very enjoyable even though none of the music was familiar to me...the playing is extremely professional, sound quality is good (as far as I can tell from playing it in the car), and the arrangements are nice.

I've listened to maybe half of the Riviera soundtrack, and thought it was pretty good, but I may hold off on the rest until I actually play the game. The Ys piano CD wasn't really worth it, being fairly uninteresting arrangements; nice cover art, though. I haven't listened to the other two I got yet.

[Shiva Indis]

I remember the music from Link's Awakening fondly as well, but for some reason I don't remember liking the OGC arrangement very well... I think because I was caught off guard when it veered from the good ole' Zelda theme. Doubtless, Dreaming Island - expectations = happy.

OGC 3, huh? I seem to remember a horn being off-key right at the finale of the Star Fox theme. (I still love all the original Star Fox - all 12 frames-per-second of it. ^_^;) I guess I can't fault the orchestra for the occasional error, though. OGC 3 has a pretty nice rendition of the Secret of Mana opening theme, right? Even though that game isn't particularly suited to orchestration...

[Alunissage]

I've no idea what pieces go with what; since it was a brand-new sealed copy, the first thing I did when opening it was make a copy and that's what I listened to, in my car -- so I didn't have a tracklist handy, and Zelda was the only one I've actually played before. I'll need to listen to the whole thing when I'm not driving, too, as the road noise doesn't help things much. I had to turn up the volume to nearly twice its usual setting to hear some of it.

The Zelda arrangement was a bit repetitive and just didn't seem to do justice to having a full orchestra there. Oh well.